Rare Hartnett Pacific National car being restored at Birdwood Motor Musuem

The National Motor Museum at Birdwood is closed during the COVID-19 crisis, so they’re getting on with a special project – bringing a rare piece of Australian motoring history back to life.

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One of Australian motoring history’s rarest finds – the little car that could have – is being brought back to life behind closed doors in the Adelaide Hills.

Just 20 Hartnett Pacific cars were built in Australia in the early 1950s. One of the last three known to exist is being restored at the National Motor Museum, in Birdwood.

The Pacific Hartnett is being restored at the Birdwood Motor Museum.

The museum has been closed since March 23 in response to the COVID-19 epidemic. April should be one of its busiest times of the year.

While the museum’s collection of about 350 vehicles is temporarily out of the public gaze, its staff are hoping to dust off the little green Hartnett Pacific soft-top saloon that’s been sitting idle in one of the workshops for more than 20 years.

National Motor Museum curator Matthew Lombard said the Hartnett Pacific was built in Melbourne in 1951 and was an “extremely important” part of motoring history.

“It’s important because sometimes failures are just as important as successes,” Mr Lombard said.

National Motor Museum curator Matthew Lombard with a 1950/51 Hartnett Pacificwhich is being restored at the Birdwood workshop while the museum is shut down. Picture: AAP /Mark Brake

The Hartnett Pacific and the Hartnett Tasman were meant to be one of the nation’s first Australian-made small cars for city slickers – rivalling the European-made Volkswagen and Morris Minor.

The Hartnett’s architect was “the father of the Holden”, Sir Laurence Hartnett, the Australian managing director of General Motors-Holden in the 1930s and ’40s.

It was Sir Laurence who drove the production of the first mass-produced Australian car – the Holden 48-215.

His GMH success had almost guaranteed him triumph with a vehicle named after him.

Sir Laurence Hartnett, with the car he invented called the Hartnett.

Sir Laurence Hartnett, who in 1936 set up General Motors-Holden headquarters and assembly operations in Melbourne.

But poor timing, post-war depression and broken federal promises meant the Hartnett fleet never got off the ground. Sir Laurence went on to introduce the very successful Nissan brand to Australia as a result.

“The Hartnett really was the little car that didn’t make it,” Mr Lombard said.

“It represents the story of the little Aussie battler – the story of bad luck but never giving up.”

The front of a Harnett, in Victoria in 2003.

In these unprecedented times of COVID-19, public access to our cultural and public establishments such as the National Motor Museum has been indefinitely stopped.

Starting today, however, some of our most iconic South Australian places are opening their doors to Sunday Mail readers, revealing hidden treasures and inner workings of this new life behind the scenes.